The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano is divided into three sections. The first section, "Mexicans Lost in Mexico," is narrated by Juan Garcia Madero, a teenager who call it quits in studies before joining visceral realism. Juan leaves school after meeting Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima. Most members of visceral realism spend their time drinking, peddling drugs, and doing prostitution. The movement recruits young artists and publishes newspapers. Madero is happy with the new movement because he enjoys all the freedom he yearns. The visceral realists conduct all manner of iniquities. Belano and Lima become preoccupied with Cesarea Tinajero, a poet in the 1920s.
The second part of the book is “The Savage Detectives,” where the section contains first-person interviews of Belano and Lima’s friends and foes. The people featured in the second section have interacted with these two main characters in one way or another. The book portrays characters whose lives are controversial. When Belano and Lima get into people’s lives, the consequences are resentful. However, their influence can’t be ignored. The two friends can’t maintain a single job and in most cases are doing drugs. Belano and Lima travels across Europe and West Africa preaching about visceral realism. People who met them feel that they are exclusive poets.
The third section of the book, “The Deserts of Sonora,” takes the reader back to Madero. When Belano and Lima finally finds Cesarea, they discover that she is strange and simple person. Indeed, the book elicits the experiences of transforming from formative years to adulthood. The author creates an allusion of literary movement. The characters and tones used in the book shows the author’s brilliance in literary works.
